Wired for Control…Who Me?

Posted on by under Uncategorized

“Hi, my name is Joni and I am a control-freak.”  Welcome to CFA — Control Freaks Anonymous.  No, not really.  However, this week I started an on-line Bible study called Let. It. Go. and I’m learning some things about myself I don’t particularly like.  I thought certain as I read the book and participated in the discussions that it would confirm what I already knew to be true, that I’m a bit bossy.  Okay…a lot bossy!  But that didn’t mean that I want to be in control, right?

It seems that being bossy is a symptom of a larger problem.  For me, controlling takes the form of wanting to fix everything (and everyone), to make everyone happy, and to be the peacemaker.  Those are good things, right?

When I was young, my parents apparently thought I would grow up to be a lawyer.  I can’t imagine why they thought that!  (They were almost right, though — I did become a paralegal.  But only after deciding that being an elementary school teacher took too long and I wanted to get married.)  I was probably around 2 or 3 when I thought for sure you were supposed to EAT the birthday candles, and could not be persuaded otherwise.  

I am also fairly certain that for a while I was the bane of my brother’s existence.  I bossed that poor child around like I was his mother.  The only problem was he was only 2 years younger than me, so as he got older we ended up fighting like cats and dogs.  (No Mom, the lamp really did get broken by the cat!)  I wish he was still around so I could apologize…

I remember distinctly in elementary school when my ‘take charge’ attitude led to a trip to the principal’s office.  (One of several, but we won’t go into that.)  Our teacher was called from the room for something and we were to work quietly at our desks.  I apparently decided that my pencil had seen better days, so instead of just getting a pencil for myself, I headed to the closet and handed out new pencils and tablets to the whole class.  It seemed like a good idea at the time…

All of this didn’t bode well for my future husband.  Being the youngest of 3 children, he had had enough bossing around for a lifetime.  (Especially from his sister, who apparently thought she was his mother, too.  Are you starting to see a pattern here?)  Our wedded bliss lasted until the first time we did laundry together.  I was thrilled that his idea of marriage was doing everything together, but apparently telling him that he wasn’t folding everything just right was not the way to encourage this behavior.  As a matter of fact, I don’t think he’s touched a load of laundry since.

I don’t need to mention all the times my sons called me bossy and mean — that’s just a mom thing, so I didn’t take that to heart.  But now, as I work through this study, I realize that women in general have an innate desire to be in control.  (Phew, I was starting to worry that it was just me!)  As the author, Karen Ehman, states women are born “ready to manage, plan, arrange, position, and take charge.”  And it’s a good thing, too — look at all we have to do every day!

Suffice to say, I feel better that I’m not alone.  But how do you change such life-long behavior?  Well, I’ll just have to finish the book and let you know!!

Fat and going on 50!

Posted on by under Health and Wellness

I don’t know how I got here, but in a few weeks I’ll be 50.  Not that I think that’s a bad thing, it just doesn’t seem possible!  It’s not the age I object to — I don’t FEEL any older than I did at 30.  The worst thing about turning 50 for me is that I’m in such lousy shape.  Now, it wasn’t always this way.  As a child and a teenager, I could eat anything and not gain weight.  I have a feeling that’s because that our lives were filled with so much physical activity.  We spent our days outside playing and riding bikes, not inside sitting in front of a computer.

I was always in pretty good shape until I got married.  It’s true!  After our wedding and honeymoon, my husband and I moved ‘across the river’ to Harrisburg.  (Gasp!)  That wouldn’t have been so bad, but we only had one car so I was stuck at home evenings and weekends while he was working.  Alone.  My family and friends were on the other side of the river.  I had to borrow my parents Plymouth Scamp just to get groceries!  Add to that the fact that I was used to cooking for a family of 4, and you have a recipe for gaining 20 pounds by our first anniversary.  I think I heard somewhere that if you’re happily married you gain weight…yep, that’s my excuse!

Fast forward a few years…we’ve moved to Lemoyne (back to the ‘right’ side of the river) and added a second car (thanks to a kind co-worker who sold us hers for a song).  We also started jogging after work and eating salads for supper.  We played rec league volleyball together, and I also played for my law firm’s team.  These changes brought about my ‘thinnest’ self — 106 pounds.  Friends and family thought I was too thin — I thought wearing a size 4 was awesome!!

Needless to say, all good things must come to an end.  But something else wonderful happened — children!  They are my greatest joy and have caused some of my deepest heartaches.  They also wrecked my body!!  Not only did I have gestational diabetes during both of my pregnancies, I no longer had the time nor the inclination to exercise.  The day of reckoning came after our trip to the Outer Banks the week of 9/11.  Pictures from that trip caused me to finally address my weight, which had skyrocketed to 207!  What?  I know, I can’t even believe it either.  (Except when I pull out those pics.)

Weight watchers became my lifeline and over the next year or so, I lost 70 pounds and weighed a respectable 137.  Life was good again!  I would never wear a bikini in public, but I was more than happy with the way I looked in clothes and I had lots of them to prove it!!

Alas, this too did not last…  I blinked and I’m 49 and fat again.  I know, that doesn’t sound nice, but I’m just being honest.  It didn’t happen overnight.  It was gradual, one bad choice on top of another leading me to a place I didn’t want to be.

So, what to do about it?  Well, probably for the first time in my life, I asked God what He wanted me to do about my eating.  (I’ve come to believe that God cares about every aspect of our lives and that if we ask Him, He will give us an answer.)  I have to admit that I had been paying for Weight Watchers for over a year, but guess what?  You have to GO to the meetings and DO what they say for it to work.  Imagine that!  The first thing I felt Him leading me to do was cancel Weight Watchers.  Yes, WW helped me lose a lot of weight in the past, but I didn’t change WHAT I ate…I just ate less of the things I WANTED to eat.  I knew the time had come to finally begin putting some good fuel into my body.  But healthy food?  Yuck.  Besides, I’m married to a foodie!!  This was going to be rough…

Now before I go any further, I want to give kudos to my awesome son Josh who lost 50 pounds this past year!!  I am SO proud of him!!  But I kept mulling over the fact that he, like me, had not changed WHAT he ate, only how much.  Plus, he’s been working out year round five days a week training for football.  What will happen when he graduates next year and isn’t playing football anymore?  Will he gradually gain all his weight back like I did?  Unfortunately, the answer is ‘probably!’  So this eating thing wasn’t just about me.  It’s about my family learning to eat healthy too.  Ugh…

As I prayed about eating better, I have to say that I was filled with trepidation!  I DID NOT WANT TO DO THIS!!  Yes, that was me kicking and screaming (on the inside) like a 2-year-old.  I’m sure God was very happy with me!  I did, however, resign myself to the reality that I didn’t have a choice.  I didn’t want to continue down the road to obesity, diabetes and whatever other weight related issues I would inevitably face without some major changes in my life.  But what to do?

It was at this point that I discovered “The Digest Diet,” written by the editor of Reader’s Digest.  After downloading the book to my Kindle and reading it in an afternoon, I was intrigued.  Not quite ready to jump on the bandwagon, but feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time.  I do object strenuously to the word ‘diet’ as this would be a TOTAL life change!  A ‘turn the whole household on its head’ change…  Yikes!